


this sandwich is you

by eruthiel



Category: Operation Mad Ball (1957)
Genre: 1950s, Alcohol, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mild Language, Post-Canon, male wife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28555518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruthiel/pseuds/eruthiel
Summary: Lock needs a trophy wife. Hogan has nothing better to do.
Relationships: Private Hogan/Captain Lock
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	this sandwich is you

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot more I want to write to continue this scenario!!! I’m just struggling to get it down, and got too impatient waiting to post this little opening segment. I hope you like it and I’ll try to post more at some point ❤️
> 
> Also posting from my phone so please forgive any formatting weirdness uwu! The title and quote are from Red Dwarf.

_"All your ingredients are wrong. You’re slobby, you’ve got no sense of discipline, but people like you. Now, me — all the ingredients are right. I’m disciplined, I’m organized, I’m dedicated to my career, I’ve always got a pen. Result? Despised by everyone except the ship’s parrot. And that’s only because we haven’t got one. Why? Why is that?"_

"Hit me again," Lock grunts, and slides his glass across the bar. He doesn't look up as the shadow of the bartender falls across him, then goes still.

A long moment passes in silence. Eventually Lock barks, "Well? Don't just stand there, you idiot. I said —" He looks up, and immediately the stillness falls over him too. He whispers, "You."

"You," Hogan replies, shaking his head, an uncertain smile spreading across his face. "Well, well. Fancy seeing you here, sir."

"Don't call me sir if you're only doing it to mock me," Lock snaps.

"Sorry, sir."

"Still can't obey simple orders, I see."

"Did you think leaving the army would make me _more_ disciplined?"

Lock taps his glass. "I said I want another one."

Hogan picks up the glass and tosses it lightly from hand to hand. "Coming right up, sir. Or should I call you Mr Lock? Or Paul?"

"Call me whatever you want, Hogan."

"Gerry, please." Hogan pours a drink and passes it over, before plonking his elbows down on the bar and his chin in his hands. "So, _Paul,"_ he grins. "How's civilian life treating you? Are you my president yet?"

"Not yet. Don't you keep up with the news?"

"No, just the baseball."

"You should, or you won't know when to show up to vote against me."

Hogan idly traces his index finger through a puddle of beer, drawing little shapes on the bartop. "Oh, I wouldn't do that," he says, "not necessarily. Just because I hate your guts, that doesn't mean you wouldn't make a good president."

"Huh. Unfortunately, you seem to be the only person who sees it that way."

"Oh?"

"The political career is… having a little trouble getting started."

Hogan gasps sarcastically. "Ah! Because everyone else hates your guts, too!"

"It's called _lacking the common touch,_ actually."

"Oh, that. I've got that."

"I know you do," Lock sneers. "Your stupid face pops into my head every time someone mentions it. It is truly absurd.”

“I can’t help it if people like me,” Hogan shrugs.

“But what is there to like about you, actually? You're pretty. And _gregarious,_ which is a polite way of saying promiscuous. And yet you have them all eating out of the palm of your hand — men and women, young and old, rich and poor. It's disgusting."

"I'm also good at organising parties," Hogan adds. "But go back to the bit about me being pretty."

"Pretty enough to work behind the bar in a dump like this, sure."

Hogan draws a little frowning face in the beer. "Y'know," he says, "people would probably like you more if you just made the tiniest little effort to be nice."

"But it's so hard to be nice to you when I know you already dislike me. You annoy me. I'm cruel to you. You annoy me more. You see? It's a vicious cycle."

Adding angry eyebrows and a moustache to the beer face, Hogan says, "People will come around. Once you start treating them nicely, they'll be nice too, and it's all golden from there. You've just got to break the cycle. Be the bigger man."

"I never understood that expression. If you're the bigger man, you shouldn't _have_ to be nice to people who are smaller than you."

"Oh, boy," says Hogan, and dries his hand on his apron. "This is going to be a long night."

***

The bar is closed, the street outside abandoned. The two old enemies have long since staggered from the bar to a table in the corner, where a candle is burning low and failing to create an atmosphere of romance.

"All those people," Hogan slurs, his eyes shining. "All so happy. Having so much fun. And all because of me. None of them will ever forget that night, you know, and I was the one who made it all happen." His eyes close briefly, and when they open again, all the light is gone from them. He murmurs, "I peaked that night. There's no point getting maudlin about it. I just have to accept the facts. Nothing I do will ever be that good again."

Lock squints at him. "It sounds like a seedy party in a dirty old barn."

"It… was. But that was the miracle of it! Don't you see?"

"No."

Hogan sighs. The candle throws up shadows that make him look older than he is. "It was about — about hope. The feeling of possibility."

"Possibility of what, hangovers? Court martial?"

 _"Yes!_ The possibility that it might all go horribly wrong. Or beautifully right. The possibility of getting caught — the possibility of sex." Hogan hiccups. "The near-certainty of it, for some of us. But it's that little bit of uncertainty that makes it fun. I miss the thrill of the chase, the challenge of it." He gestures around at the crumbling bar and pulls a face. "There's no uncertainty in this. No possibility either. Come to work, do my job, go home and sleep. See one of the guys once in a while and just talk and talk and talk about the old days."

"That's normal."

"It's killing me. It’s not like I want to be rich or famous or a great leader or any of that; I just want to _be_ somebody, in my own little way, you know? To be around people, to make them happy. To make them feel that excitement again."

"No point having the common touch with nobody to use it on."

"Exactly."

Lock sighs and puts his face in his hands. "I’d give anything to take it off you. I think I’m fucked without it."

"Aw, come on," Hogan soothes, and touches his arm. "Assholes more unlikeable than you get elected all the time."

"Right now I’d settle for being able to run! The hurdles they make you jump through, boy, you wouldn’t believe it! You have to be constantly schmoozing the right people, wining and dining potential donors, blah blah blah. I'm just not cut out for that kind of thing."

Hogan pats his hand sympathetically. "I always thought you were very good at sucking up. Captain."

Lock snorts. "For the army, sure. But in politics they're on a whole other level. If you don’t have the charisma, you might as well be a stuffed fish." He sighs again and drains his glass. "Unless you've got a pretty wife, of course. Nothing bolsters weak schmoozing like a pretty wife."

"Your wife's not pretty?"

"She's non-existent."

"Oh, of course. Well then, what's the problem?" Hogan grins. "Just find a suitable girl and marry her. First stop, church; next stop, the White House."

Rolling his eyes, Lock says, "You think I haven't tried? You don't remember me courting Lieutenant Bixby before you came along and cocked that up for me?"

"Oh, Paul. There's a difference between 'courting' a girl and terrorising her. Besides, Betty was never going to marry you."

"She might have!"

"She wouldn't, trust me. And even if she had, I really don't think she was the kind of girl you have in mind." Hogan takes a swig of his drink and slams the glass down decisively. "Too serious. Last I heard, she was still in the service."

"Well on her way to general by now, I expect."

"Exactly. You don't need a girl with ambitions of her own. You need someone with a sense of fun, someone who's along for the ride."

Lock shrugs. "Maybe you're right. Maybe Bixby wasn't suitable. But that doesn't bring me any closer to actually _finding_ someone suitable, does it?"

Hogan gives him a strange look. "What makes you think it's going to be hard?" he says, slowly. "Strikes me all you need is a pretty, gregarious young thing who's good at organising parties. That can't be such a difficult sort of person to find."

The candle gutters and goes out, leaving them looking at each other in just the orange streetlight glow from outside. Eventually, Lock swallows and says, "How do you feel about milk, Private?"


End file.
